Literacy is uncommon; technical literacy is exiguous. The last time around here--American presidential elections are quadrennial--the late Gore Vidal observed that
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. --jg On 8/30/12, Elardus Engelbrecht <[email protected]> wrote: > Vernooij, CP - SPLXM wrote: > >>Not so strange. That's what you get, when you take a normal word, that has >> a normal meaning to everybody and use it for a very special niche thing >> that lives fully outside of normal lifes of 95% of the people. > > Of course. There are dictionaries for each field/career/study etc... Here at > IBM-MAIN members are discussing/using terms about z/OS, OS/390, MVS, etc. > > AFAIK, Medical terms are not used much here for example, the last time I > checked. :-D > > >>Don't be surprised that the 'normal' people suppose the 'normal' meaning of >> this normal word. > > I once made an error where I asked a parent of a Down syndrome child where > he will put his child. In a 'normal' or 'special' school? He asked me a > counter question: "What is 'normal'?" Oooooops... > > >>We have elections coming up and a survey showed that many people don't know >> the meaning of terms that are used only in parliament and on political >> talkshows on TV. > > Here in sunny South Africa we are using the term 'voting station', not > 'polling station' during elections. > Why? 'polling' sounds much like 'police'. > > :-D > > Groete / Greetings > Elardus Engelbrecht > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
